Weak Wrists
by Xyliette
Summary: A slightly different take on "the other time" and everything else.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Told myself I would finish this before the new season began. All mistakes and crazy are my own. Enjoy-

_**~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Weak Wrists  
- Beware of Safety  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~**_

The sun hangs high in the sky on a Tuesday in a sea of other normal weekdays. Outside there are rumblings of finished cases and fresh ones being cracked wide open. The phone rings, twice. She glares at Louis as he approached the glass door they are hiding behind and he makes an abrupt right turn. Harvey's hands are laced behind his head, not an apparent care in the world, and she's wondering who is going to speak first. Utter the god-awful words that need be said.

She looks to the records, lost.

She's not really sure how she allowed this to happen, and the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach that everything is now ablaze is not something that will be easily forgotten.

Donna hears papers begin to shuffle behind her, one heel twisting in as she perches precariously between addressing this and letting it waver out into the canyon of other inappropriate moments they've shared and don't discuss.

But she hates the way he's been looking at her, it makes her heart turn nervously, flipping, sloshing.

Her free hand brushes against the arm of his leather couch, the one she bitched at him for buying because it's heavy as hell and once his decorator fled the scene she was left to reorganize the disaster. Her shoulders ached for days after, but there was that fleeting moment when they slid down the back and fell to the floor in a pile of delirious delight, high off closing a deal and betting against the odds again that almost made it worth it.

He's not going to say it.

She's not sure she's willing to jeopardize the memories. The heat from the coffee in her hand begins to burn, her palm alive with fire, her heart confused, brain screaming, "Don't!".

"Harvey," she starts determined. He spins in his chair, facing her when she finally can look back.

There's an orange glow about the building, warmth becoming stifling, she itches to turn on a fan. "We need to talk."

She hears a groan, and curses the phrasing, no matter how true it may be.

"I know you're mad I about A-Rod but I stand behind that decision. Stop listening to Brett, he's leading you astray about Youkilis, " he tells her for the third time this week.

She gestures to the drink in her hand and he raises his eyebrows. "I usually bring you the coffee," she states plainly.

"Am I not allowed to do a nice thing for someone else for once?"

He's challenging her. And he doesn't do nice things, not that are noticeable to just anyone passing by. It's a grenade thrown out into overrun field. "We're celebrating...early birthday present," he dismisses, pointing to the door and the phone that's ringing again. It never stops.

* * *

"Come on Donna, what do you have going on anyway?"

"I have plans," she says softly.

She doesn't. He'll make new ones.

* * *

She's embarrassed that she wasn't the first one to know, might never admit it if she's cornered. It shouldn't be terribly surprising.

It is.

He's working late on an awkward Thursday, the city abuzz below with holiday traffic and tourists trying new things. And she waits. Waits until Jessica nods a goodnight in her direction, waits until her mind can finish analyzing every tiny thing that has happened in the last two weeks, three months, a year. God, she can't figure out when it started, really. The progression was so natural, they didn't keep things in check that they should have, and she knows better than this.

She's been warned half a million times by family, by friends, by co-workers, Louis.

"Harvey," she sputters, stepping into his office and closing the door. There are times when she honestly wishes he had shades, or that he did his work in the library or anywhere else that might be less visible than this trophy case.

"You're here late," he commends, glancing over the edge of a file.

"You have to stop," she demands, hands trying to find their place on her hips, but they flop, fall to her sides. She doesn't want to have to spell it out for him. Writing it down may be easier than this conversation, but then there'd be tangible evidence.

"You're going to ruin it," she warns. If it hasn't already been ruined.

"Donna, I think what he have here is a failure to communicate. You see I don't know what you are so intent on stopping, and I have things to do."

"Your calendar suggests otherwise," she tells him and he dips his head to look at the computer, she's not wrong. Never is, unfortunately.

"Out," he scolds, waiving towards the door.

* * *

It'd almost be easier, turn into that cliché, run wild with the gossip, her hair knotted with guilt, immense pleasure.

Except one tiny thing.

* * *

It's one issue after the other today. Louis has been banned from the fax machine for making it angry, Contracts is pissed off at her for calling in a favor they wanted to forget they owed, and Jessica has been pacing the floor waiting for a merger to close that's been drawn out far too long. Every time Donna looks up someone is there, wanting, palms outstretched.

She smells it before she looks up at the offender. He offers her a small grin, and points to his office, leaving without giving her the chance to decline.

She has to relocate this morning's paper and a few cases onto the table across from them before she can sink into the chilled couch next to him. He offers her a fork, peeling back the fancy paper box, and the powdery, sugary concoctions waft into the open air, mingling with her nerves. Tiny tarts with fresh slices of strawberry, and slivers of cheesecakes, towers of sturdy chocolate. All tempting her.

Harvey reaches over her shoulder and her heart races. It wouldn't be here. Not like this. He's close enough to inhale, and her breath hitches in anticipation as he pulls a bottle of champagne out from behind her.

Six years ago it was a plastic glass of sparkling wine and a lopsided cupcake with wax dripping onto it from the half-burnt candle.

Last year he forgot.

"Happy Birthday," he compliments and she can tell he is refraining from making the obligatory age related jokes in favor of soaking in the moment.

It's terrifying.

* * *

"Is this because of your dad?" Donna bursts in as he widens the door to his condo. "Are you having some sort of mid-life crisis that you forgot to clue me in on?"

"Nice to see you too," Harvey says, following her, almost running into her as she halts abruptly in the entryway. "Care for a nightcap?"

She furrows her brow, squinting into the open areas of his place. "You got rid of-"

"You hated-"

"You loved-" She counters, angrily, twirling around. "When?"

"I can't remember," Harvey shrugs, finally moving past her.

"When?" Donna demands, staring at the now empty space. It's the bow on the box, the final nail in the coffin.

"I didn't know you were so invested in the feng shui of my place," Harvey puffs, pouring himself a drink in a fresh cup, his old one next to it.

"When."

"Couple months ago- Where are you going?"

She can hear his footsteps chasing her down, but she's quicker, slamming his own door in his face.

The cold wind bites her lungs when she lunges outside, racing away from the scene of the crime.

* * *

He questions her silently the following day, hovering over her shoulder as she types. All she can do is will him away, and make about a million typos that she's pretending don't exist. And she's angry because it's going to take so much longer to proof and edit now that he's back there, playing with her rubber-band ball and pulling on the petals of her white orchid like he hasn't a thing to do. He breaks after lunch, Jessica pulling him away onto the Cole case.

Her resolve begins crumbling around five. All of the rustlings in the file room, the rumors that circulate the cafeteria, the halted sentences that snap as she enters rooms, swarm, engulf her, wrapping their nimble fingers around her neck.

_Maybe_, they whisper.

* * *

"Donna."

"Jessica," Donna returns, turning around from the files in her hand that are looking for their proper home after Harvey drove a hurricane through their desks late last night. It was in retaliation, she is certain.

"Join me."

Donna swallows heavily. Normally this would be a fun mission. Who did this, what did you see, what do you know about _fill in the blank_. She has a gut feeling this might be different.

* * *

"Why are you doing this to us?" Donna asks, steadily twisting her left heel into the ground. She's had hours to recoup from Jessica's interrogation, and the tables are not pretty when they're turned.

It took a hell of a lot of acting and convincing and manipulation to get out of that room with their boss none the wiser about what's been building between them. She could tell it was a conversation that Jessica had been putting off, a mutual feeling.

"Last time I checked being awesome is what I get paid so well to do."

She hits the papers out of his hands, letting them fall to the floor. She'll just have to reorganize the entire case file later anyway, what's a few tattered pages in the name of truth.

He raises his eyebrows in question, trying to pick up on the game they are playing. He's in that mood today. She's not.

The room is beginning to fade, light falling into the horizon, and Donna's palms are itching with sweat, throat collapsing, jaw shaking under the tension.

"What?" Harvey asks, seriousness creeping back into his voice. "What happened, Donna? What's wrong?"

Her cheeks are reddening involuntarily, the ending tumbling onto her shoulders. She never imagined this is how they'd disintegrate. "You," she whispers.

"Me."

"Why didn't you tell me, we could have fixed this!"

"Tell you what?" Harvey questions, rising, hands tangling into his pockets defensively, hers wrung together, the edges of her bracelet giving way to her nerves.

She's shaking her head because there's no way she's going to say it aloud, for fear of a great many things, affirmation the biggest of her worries. She motions at the space between them, his desk the divider, bottom lip finding a home between her teeth.

"No," he says, but it's ashamed, not surprised. He's been caught, and he wasn't exactly doing a great job of hiding it.

"I'm going home," Donna says quietly, to herself. There's really nothing else to be done. The day is technically over. She said what she wanted. Now she needs a drink or three.

"You're mistaken Donna," he calls after her, half-heartedly.

* * *

"That goddamned dinner party," she says by way of greeting, buzzing him up.

"I had a good time at that dinner party, the company wasn't that bad all things considered," he tells her when she opens her front door.

Instead of welcoming him, she puts herself in the hallway too. For various reasons, but mainly because he hates Mrs. Abernathy down the hall and knows he won't risk waking her and her seven chihuahuas by raising his voice.

"Save it, Specter," she says, holding up a hand. She had wanted to drink herself into oblivion all weekend but Friday night she fell into a fit of depression and soothing tea and bubble-bath and today has been spent running errands, and meeting up with friends for some good retail therapy. They asked, why she seemed a little aloof, but she said she was coming down with something and was simply tired. She hasn't called home like she normally does on the weekends for fear of her mother sniffing it out.

"I think this conversation might be better suited to the inside of your apartment, unkempt as it may be."

Once they make it in they fool themselves with cups of coffee and meaningless talk about what a rotten crop of associates they got this year.

"I'm never wrong," Donna interrupts.

"You're Donna, you know everything," Harvey concedes, throwing himself onto her couch, empty mug coming to a rest on a well used, barely legible coaster.

"I didn't know this," she laments. It smacked her over the head weeks ago, and has been worming its way into every action, every thought. "What are we gonna do?"

"What do you want to do?" Harvey asks quietly, inching his way closer.

It's all she's been asking herself, how to proceed. And how nice it would be to just give in, on a whim, and throw herself at him. But given the benefit of foresight, hindsight and time in this situation she knows it wouldn't go like she'd want. There'd be no squabbling over paint swatches, and which dishes to put on their registry. He wouldn't gasp when she emerged at the end of long aisle in her hometown, and she wouldn't gripe when he'd stay too long at the office on those long winter nights. Late night anniversary dinners, lazy Sunday mornings, quiet evenings of sharing chopsticks. That's not how this would evolve.

They'd smack into each other and fight over every square inch in the name of something that would be unrecognizable by the finale.

She'd rather squash the possibilities before they get out of control. Her fantasies, her vivid imagination, while often a gift, works against her here.

She settles somewhere in a comfortable half-truth.

"I don't want to have to figure out how we end."

"But you see a beginning," Harvey picks apart, and Donna already regrets it.

"You should go."

* * *

She cuts her ties slowly, methodically. No more working out of his condo. No more showing up on Saturdays to keep him company (though the things she can learn on one Saturday alone are almost worth it). No lingering, no waiting to burn the midnight oil at her desk. And it helps. Seeing as little of him as possible, it does wonders, for her.

But Harvey's eyes keep boring holes into her back, and sometimes his hands keep trying to guide her through doorways and elevators, and she hasn't had any annoying calls from his many women since she can't remember when. He stands too close for her to breathe anything but him in, and she keeps finding things under her desk, out of plain sight. Tickets for this play, new shoes for that event, a bottle of her favorite wine for no celebration she can recall.

She's not sure if he's apologizing or if she's being courted, and it is exhausting.

* * *

"Revised briefs for the Durand case," Donna says, dropping the file on his desk and promptly spinning back around. There's still snow on the ground this morning from the beating the city took over the weekend and the chill running through her spine cannot be stopped by her long black sleeves.

"Wait."

"What?" Donna asks annoyed, finding it in herself to make eye contact for the first time all week. The space she keeps putting between them has finally managed to feel like a cavern instead of a crevice, she won't lose that traction now.

"Are we not even friends anymore?" Harvey asks, looking for a pen and plucking it out of her hands when she beats him to it. "Look, about that night-"

"We don't talk about that night," Donna admonishes him. It's for the best.

"Because you don't want to feel anything in that ice pump you call a heart."

"Me? You were actually called the Grinch this year, and not by Louis or the douchebag associates. Everyone loves me," she says without thinking, playing into the banter he teased her with.

"You gave them all Christmas bonuses with my money-"

"Well spent," she reminds him, not brave enough to take a seat in front of his desk or worse the beloved couch. No this is a quick ten minute sparring.

"How's Norma?" Harvey asks, switching gears.

"She's invaluable," Donna replies off the cuff, and then realizes, "You miss the gossip. You are such a woman."

"I don't", he pauses, "sometimes it is useful."

"I tell you when it's useful."

"Not lately," he reminds her. She can't spend longer than twenty seconds alone in this office with him.

"Things slow down after the holidays Harvey, less free alcohol," Donna says, giving a respite, a pause to interject, to continue. He passes. "Jessica wants you in her office after lunch."

She lets the curtain fall, sealing it off. Obvious and ugly, it's keeping her on the straight and narrow.

* * *

"It's just coffee," Harvey says, offering the cup as Donna glares at him.

She only let him beat her because she had to corner a paralegal on the 47th floor for a sound scolding. The sky is threatening to open up and she wonders when her heart is going to stop skipping a beat every time he catches her off-guard. The first drop hits her nose as she lifts the cup to her face and Harvey urges her back toward the building with a feather light brush of his hand to her forearm.

She contemplates if he is purposefully baiting her. Teaching her a lesson.

She wonders if he just doesn't know. If everything is such a habit now that they couldn't get off the roller-coaster even if they wanted to.

"Sugar free?" Donna asks, stepping onto the elevator, furthest away from the entrance.

"You'd know if it wasn't," Harvey grunts at her, looking through what she is sure is emails on his phone.

He's perched up against the wall of the elevator, heel dug into the floor.

It'd be a good time to tell him she is convinced they could never make it work as anything other than the occasional friend and co-worker solution they have. It'd be a great time to remind him they have known this since the day they started "working" together.

She should discourage him.

* * *

Fridays are usually hectic, frantic, the world speeding by her desk. When she agreed to this function months ago she had neglected to remind herself to recheck Harvey's schedule for a coincidence. One slip-up has landed her here, wrapped up in someone else's coat, hiding out on the roof in the freezing fog, letting the lights of the city warm her eyes.

It wasn't his date or his presence that bothered her. And she didn't really care that she was here with a man who she found to be slightly inappropriate when intoxicated. Sometimes they saw each other out in the real world, more often at these types of events than at the dry cleaners. She didn't mind making small talk with the particularly vapid brunette he had selected while Harvey and Tate talk newspapers and sports and everything she finds more interesting than silent auctions for charities that are already well endowed.

The problem is that by mid-day Monday, when they have a breath, he's not going to ask her what the hell kind of name Tate is, and she's not going to imply what a fulfilling weekend he must have had.

They're destroying it anyway.

* * *

"Penny for your thoughts?" She hears hum behind her, hot breath creeping over the edge of her ear.

"I'm worth way more than a-"

"Penny," Harvey finishes for her.

"You look like a petulant child," Donna comments, pushing her shoulders back into the jacket she stole.

"Who signs me up for me these things anyway, they couldn't be duller if I was literally watching paint dry."

"And you whine like one too. Jessica," Donna nods, catching a glimpse of the woman in the center of the room with a face Harvey wouldn't know the name to if it cost him a million dollars.

"Want to get out of here?" Harvey asks, a glimmer of hope catching her eye.

"Yes," Donna answers quickly, truthfully. But, it certainly doesn't mean they should be leaving together or even hiding out up here. She swears to God if Jessica shoots her one more of her all-knowing, scolding glances she may well lose her composure.

"There you are," Tate gushes, the heat from the overstuffed room falling out onto the deck she is occupying.

"Excuse me," Donna tells Harvey, making her way back to the party. "You should get back to your date before she gets eaten like a baby sea turtle out there."

* * *

Monday washes over her with a chilly wave of mediocre. Harvey spends the majority of it in and out of court, things colliding in a way she had little control of. By the time he makes it back to the office it looks like he had little say in how the day's events went too. She tackles filing like it offended her family, Harvey's calendar like it asked for it, and wipes her email clean of any trace of the day. Fifteen minutes later she's messing with her rubber-band ball, waiting for Harvey to hand her the latest developments, send her off chasing her tail in the file room.

Silence, however once desired, weights her shoulders, anchoring her.

* * *

It seems to leave her too briskly. But then, things do always crumble much quicker than they were constructed. She misses the bitter coffee, the sweet anticipation of when he'd reach out for her next, the stress of whether or not anyone was actually catching on. Last she heard, Gloria from Accounting was screwing Henry from Mergers. Which should be a good thing, that she isn't having to spin and weave the rumor mill away from her any longer.

It's a blessing.

She spends the weekend attempting to become zen, drinking the disgusting white wine her sister sent for her birthday, and ignoring the human race.

* * *

He surprises her sometimes. Not often. Less and less as the years tick by, but when she arrives early to find music seeping under the glass of his door it sneaks up and steals her breath.

She's waved in, he points to the wall of records, imploring.

And after almost a decade of getting up earlier than she would have ever thought back in her college days, the chore feels a little ridiculous. Music shouldn't be setting a mood for the day when the sun hasn't even bothered to make an appearance yet. The room feels thick and cloying, like she should reach out and grab a handful before it forces its way into her mouth.

"Donna."

"Harvey."

She finds one she likes, amongst the many, and pulls it from the shelf, examining the sleeve. "Did you get lost on your way home this morning?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Harvey says confidently, but deflates when he catches the glint of something he can't place that crosses her face.

"And that required showing up four hours earlier than normal? You know I prefer my peace in the morning."

He ignores her, crossing the room, close enough to breathe in. He's fresh and crisp and her mind is still muddled from the lack of caffeine coursing through it.

He wiggles his way in nearer and nearer, expertly, causing her to back into the record player. It jumps at her touch and she can see his instant frown at the likely damage to one of his favorite records. He clears his throat, hands diving into his pockets while her fingertips itch to reach out and straighten his tie ever so slightly.

"We could never go back," he tells her firmly, quietly.

She nods like she understands. She's thought of it far too many times to count anymore. The likely conclusions, the unforeseen damage. Leave it to him to come up with an answer in his own sweet time when it's been hammering against her skull for years upon years.

It is everything though.

And as he backs away again it sinks in like a dull knife. The risk may well not be worth the reward.

"You're assuming I want to go forward," Donna replies, meekly. Hell, even she isn't buying it. The world is doused in kerosene and she's standing in the middle, like an idiot. Just like her mother said she would be, just like her friends warned her. There's a warm rage starting to boil. How did this whole thing come to be her issue instead of his. Arrogant, sonofabitc-

"I'll be working from home today. Call Ray, and tell Jessica when she arrives, and don't even think about letting Louis in here."

"Right," she gulps back, turning away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Harvey says, packing papers, finding his own coat.

"We're okay," he tells her, like there was some other option she might have settled upon somewhere in the span of the last fifteen minutes. He's waiting though. Poised to exit, but held back by something.

"We're okay," she parrots. "We're great." Time heals all wounds, she recalls.

"Drinks tonight? Usual spot?"

She hasn't seen him wear hope in so long. It's ill-fitted, too snug in the neck.

"I'm busy."

She isn't, unless you count the third of a bottle of chilled white wine in the refrigerator. He'll make new plans anyway.

"You should stay," Donna decides impulsively. "I don't want to deal with everyone flipping out and couriering things back and forth all day." He looks uncertain, not a look she enjoys. "Stay," she smiles, the edges of her lips curling and cracking from their lack of use yet.

"Yeah?"

She's already bypassed him on the way to the door, Miles Davis drawing to a close behind her. "I'll get the coffee."

_Maybe_ is hastily replaced with _time, time, time_ chanting, demanding immediate resolution.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry for the delay. I have to be nocturnal when I write. I have a day job. Enjoy-

* * *

_"Do you love Harvey Specter?"_

It makes her physically ill, replaying the out of body experience.

"Why didn't you just say no?" The voice on the other end of the line echoes. "What's so complicated about that?"

Donna sighs into her tea and presses her phone a little closer to her cheek before making a half-assed excuse and ending the conversation all together. Why not indeed, she wasn't under some magical spell, she says no all the time anyway. And this time- choke, sputter, gasp, backtrack.

_"It's not that simple."_ She thinks now she may have only been fooling herself.

It wasn't very becoming, she understands. God damn Mike Ross. She hopes he can feel her fury across town.

She thinks about trashing her apartment, her phone, briefly. It's not like she couldn't buy a new one. It's not like the wall wouldn't be some sort of magnificent savior if it could just stop the buzzing and the incessant ringing.

Instead, she ditches the tea for the vodka she stashes away for special occasions such as these, and after the time with Harvey, and the one time with Louis that no one will ever speak of again, ever.

The alcohol doesn't quite numb the way or as quickly as she would like.

A single drink doesn't feel nearly hot enough sliding down her throat, it is too smooth to burn. She tables it, takes herself around the apartment, organizing. The box of stuff from the office is in the hall closet where it will likely live for some time, wearing a hole into the floor. She wants to toss the things that remind her of him, of their time spent together, but she just stares at the pictures, the mementos, unable to take that leap. It's so characteristic, on level with the entire day of questions and decisions she just can't seem to make.

She's surprised to find herself complacent on the couch twenty minutes later, listening to the idle neighborhood clatter outside the windows. There's no rain, no thunder, though that'd be fitting. There's nothing in the absence of having her world categorically destroyed over and over. The plant in the window is dying just the same as it was last Thursday, the coffee cup is still in the sink from this morning when she rushed out the door for yoga, her dry cleaning as much in need of a trip down the street as it was yesterday when she neglected it.

Everything is the same.

_"Do you love him?"_

She supposes that is the same too, and it doesn't much matter one way or the other.

* * *

She takes to hobbies because they are supposed to help, she takes to pacing her apartment because there's an disappointment that sits so quietly inside of her that she's afraid it may never escape. Mike, Rachel, Louis, hell even Zoe have left her messages. Her inbox is full, and she's not listening, not deleting, just in case she has that moment one day down the road where she gets to breakdown. She'd like to become the hot mess that begs someone for something, anything, but there's a stubborn pride that keeps telling her that though what she did may have not been easily defined as right, she still did what she had to do.

Backed into a corner, she'd fight the same way again.

Things with Harvey were once a two way street, a partnership. Then it diminished, and she told herself this was the natural course of things, that he was there, still. She'd thought they were on the same page, though in hindsight, she realizes that they aren't even using the same playbook anymore, staring at each other from across the sidelines. Sometimes she still thinks she imagined things that weren't really there, figments of her imagination that struck at midnight when everyone else had already gone home for the day.

He used to always silently invite her to stay. They'd share drinks, and dinner and she'd correct all of his spelling and logic errors before they could land on her desk in the morning. Lately he's been asking why she's still present before the sun can even have a chance to set. It was nice. In the beginning it felt like a reward. Then it felt like she had been replaced by a kindergartener. And then it felt like a punishment.

It's her fault, for not finding more people outside the office to be friends with. It's her fault for making a job something more than it was. It's her fault for constantly placing him above her. It's her fault, really.

She's never felt much like a martyr before this weekend.

* * *

Of course he tracks her down on the street. Of course she takes him up on the offer to return, it's not like anything else got off the ground, her entrepreneurial spirit dampened by the repetitive blows to her pride. Falling always seems to hurt more when you're fifty floors from the concrete.

And of course he tries to goad her into saying she loves him. Like this whole thing was completely on her. Like he didn't make her look like a complete idiot up on the stand.

She suspects it may always remain a source of contention for them. But, at least there is a them to speak of, she supposes, late at night when the silence echoes around the emptiness that has become her life.

* * *

Work is easy to dive into when so much shit is happening it literally takes three coffee breaks and full lunch to catch up on every day. Between Jessica and the merger and Louis plotting to take down demons, life is hectic. Loyalties are shifting by the hour, teams are divided, joined, and torn apart again in the span of one case.

It is exhausting. And Harvey is reaching for new heights in how many hours they can legitimately bill when it feels like they are working more days than there are in a week. Saturdays become routine again, late Sunday nights start to feel comfy in the dim office, associates running around, preparing for the following morning.

Zoe disappeared, Scottie was banished, and Harvey's calendar is comprised court time, client time, his beloved dentist appointment next week and the few minutes he can try and sleep. She contemplates the logistics of building a herself a second set of hands that can type while she juggles the phone and cooling coffees and the cases that are starting to blur together.

They're winning. A lot.

But then, that was always true.

A some point the fact that things may not entirely be okay between them gets shoved aside for other matters, this idea that forgiveness may be a good policy gets washed away with the invasion.

Donna's afraid she's the only one seeing what they're losing when Harvey is the only one delusional enough to assume they are strong as ever, united.

* * *

"It's not getting you anywhere," Rachel tells her one late evening in a crowded bar on a Friday they managed to sneak away from. They haven't had a lot of time to get out, and things are still complicated.

"What?" Donna asks over her drink, eyes distracted by the man just over her friend's shoulder.

Rachel raises her eyebrow like Donna should be following, but honestly, she's a little lost. A lot of things aren't getting her anywhere at the moment. Life seems to be in a permanent state of pause.

"Loving Harv-"

"I do not-"

"I didn't say being in lov-"

"I'm not," Donna exhales into her glass, the sour concoction wavering and wafting into her nose.

"Stephen-"

"Was an insurmountable mistake," Donna finishes for her.

"That fell apart-"

"On its own," Donna warns, wobbling off her stool and grabbing the counter to regain some semblance of balance.

"What really happened, Donna?" Rachel exclaims, exasperated. They haven't dove into anything having to do with Stephen, and she knows there is more than what her friend isn't saying.

Donna yawns and reaches for her coat. "It's late Rach, I need a raincheck on the girl talk."

"Yeah, sure," Rachel gives in. "I just don't get it. You and Harvey, I don't understand."

"There's nothing to understand," Donna quips, heading for the door, hoping Rachel will just leave well enough alone for once in her life.

"He's costing you everything, and he's giving you nothing. He never gives anyone anything."

"You take Mike's whining at face value too often," Donna commends sadly. Harvey would go to the end of the world for the people he values, they're just so few you can usually count them on one hand.

Being mad at Harvey would be an easy club to join, but Donna is too angry with herself to entertain the idea.

* * *

_"Well, I don't like him," Harvey tells her on a Wednesday evening that has been spent, in large part,for her, catching his grammatical mistakes and trying to help Mike find some precedence on their new case._

_"Well, you like no one."_

_"That's not true," Harvey pouts. "I liked that one guy, baseball player, what was his name?"_

_"Xavier," Donna huffs, gathering the files around the office that he's carelessly strewn. "And you liked him so much I thought you wanted to date him. I swear he almost left me for you. It doesn't matter anyway."_

_That was a long time ago, Donna muses. When she used to fuse her personal and professional life together in a messy, dizzying dance._

_"I don't want to see you get hurt," Harvey admits, sinking into the leather chair that she just cleaned._

_"Careful, Harvey, someone might see you caring."_

_"Don't let him use you." He continues, to Donna's discontent, shuffling from foot to foot. She feels like a scolded child. "Everything's in the air right now."_

_"I won't let him take advantage of you," Donna assures him, certain this has something to do with him feeling threatened. She's not sure why she's validating herself, why she felt the need to ask his damn permission._

_"Of you," Harvey corrects. "I can't have my best asset on the DL again this year. Don't strain anything."_

_Donna rolls her eyes and leaves, heart beating significantly faster than it should._

* * *

_"He's not using me," Donna argues, voice starting to rise. It's too early in the night for this argument. They need about a hundred people to leave the building still. She's well aware that even Norma is perched at her desk._

_"You can't see it!" Harvey yells at her from his desk, but he's rising, he's moving quickly._

_"Why can't someone just be genuinely interested in me for once?"_

_"He's not," Harvey matches with equal fervor. His tone is honest and somber and it cuts, deeply._

_He's starting to chip away at her, and she knows he knows. He slows their conversation down by pouring drinks that she staunchly refuses to take part in. He's on his second by the time he sits again._

_"Am I really that horrible-" It's a stupid question to ask of him, she realizes that even before she says it. But she's feeling things, and it's annoying._

_"Donna-"_

_Sure, maybe Stephen just made a power play. But, they talked about it. And it didn't affect Harvey, at least not directly. And she didn't help him, not really._

_"It's all about you," she remarks, finally swiping the spare drink from the coffee table and turning the records on the wall to occupy herself._

_"I'm trying to help you," Harvey tells her, oddly quiet, calm while she tries to create a hurricane._

_"When does it stop, Harvey? When do I finally get to stop proving my loyalty to you? What do you need?"_

_Harvey sighs behind her and she emits every bit the stupid, naïve girl he is making her out to be. It feels nauseating in her stomach, twisting and turning, making her question every single second of her would be relationship._

_"Just end it Donna, before it gets ugly."_

_Part of her wants to ask where exactly he manages to get off telling her what to do in her recently acquired "life", but it feels more like a plea and less like a command._

_"You're such an asshole," Donna mutters under her breath, out of line. Normally, she's teasing him, reminding him. Not this time._

_He waits so long she almost thinks that he hadn't heard her, but she wouldn't escape that easily._

_"I don't make you choose me, Donna."_

* * *

She's late to this party too, well not the actual party, that she was fashionably late to. But the subconscious part of her that is actually siding with Harvey, she's late to that. She thinks it must be a force of habit but he does make some good points.

She picks him for a reason.

She lets him interfere with her relationships.

She lets her personal life sit in ruins for months at a time, content to let it mount and spill over.

Willingly. And as that isn't exactly easy to cope with she takes to finding the celebratory champagne as immediately as possible and stealing two glasses. One for her broken heart and one for her stupid heart.

Rachel finds her banished to the outdoor space, people crawling over every available space. Donna feels like she can't breathe though the neckline of her dress borders on inappropriate. She attempts to remember a time when she used to love celebrations like this, literally standing on top of strangers and breathing in the same air.

"Not here," Donna warns, looking at their many co-workers with a smile before returning to her countless refill of sweet, bubbly sanity.

No one will know anything is wrong, if she doesn't let them. She can control this hit, too.

* * *

"What are you going to do?" Rachel asks, toying with her clean fork and contemplating attacking another piece of the cherry pie that is in the middle of the table.

"What do you mean what am I going to do?" Donna asks, sipping her coffee, slowly, enjoying the scalding that her throat takes. Last night was a thankful blur of dim lights wiggling around her inebriation, and she has roughly three hours before Harvey calls her in for one task or another. And about a hundred errands to run. Instead of preparing, of being effective, she took Rachel's call.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"What kind of idiot do you take me for?" Donna retorts, attempting to slide her sunglasses onto her head. She's too old for this kind of hangover and damn it if the pie doesn't look delicious. She takes a bite, knowing she'll regret it shortly.

"You can't not tell him."

Donna's eyes widen. She's been not telling him, or anyone else for that matter, for a great many years.

She settles in alternate truth. "I love my job."

"It's been thirteen years, Donna, maybe it's time to burn down the village for a change."

"I built that city with my bare hands-"

"You'll never know-"

"I already know," Donna remarks, taking another bite. The crust is salty and the filling is tart. It's as plain and predictable as she thought it would be. "And Harvey's not really an ask and see kind of guy. It's better this way, Rachel, it always has been."

She'll fall out of love with Harvey. Someday. She just needs time. And a plan. She's done it before, she can do it again.

* * *

_"Did you know?" Donna challenges, over what is supposed to be a celebratory dinner for Stephen's latest victory in the states._

_"Know I was going to win?" He replies, mouth busy with his salad. She's been pushing things around her plate all evening. Spending the last two weeks thinking about every single second she spent in their relationship has left her with no appetite. And the problem is, she really liked this one. She'd like to keep it._

_"Before we met, did you know I was Harvey's assistant?"_

_He looks equal parts discontented and defeated, and it's all the answer she needs. Another one bites the dust, and she feels like the one getting shot._

_"Right," she muses. Folding her napkin in her lap that she'd been picking the edges of, she stands._

_It's a shame. But then, it usually is._

* * *

She takes back her Sundays, tells Harvey he doesn't pay her well enough to demand all 168 hours of her week, and to find some friends or call Mike. He laughs at her on her way out, but the tension is thick. She used to be proud that he was always right, but this time it stings too much to ignore.

The following weekend, wisps of her hair are sticking to her neck in the humid heat that has taken over the city and Rachel already looks depressed for her. They're tiptoeing around going inside, around taking that dive.

"These places are just mills," Rachel warns her as she reaches for the door.

It's not like she didn't try and avoid this. She got the websites from Louis, and dealt with look of absolute glee that overtook him, but perusing cats online seemed ridiculous when she could just as easily pluck one from a dumpster or drive and sneak one out of a barn somewhere. This looked like the best middle-ground.

"Are you even going to be able to see it more than ten minutes a day?"

"Why do you already hate my cat?" Donna questions, spinning around on her heel.

Rachel shrugs, she's not much of an animal person, and was pretty certain Donna loathed the idea of taking care of something other than Harvey.

"I need, something, Rachel."

"You're filling a Stephen-shaped void. I just feel bad for the cat."

"I can always donate it to Louis."

Besides, she's filling a Harvey-shaped void, and it's much deeper, much more dark.

* * *

In the end, she couldn't commit. Rationally, she didn't want to be ridding herself of furry clothes and dealing with endless furniture redesigns. A fish seemed like the best solution. A companion, but not a nuisance. It's a miracle he lasts the week seeing as she forgets to feed him no fewer than four times. She pondered making him an office fish, but decided quickly that would be unseemly for her perceived power. Also, someone may poison him in retaliation and that hardly seemed fair.

Harvey lasts two weeks before sauntering into her cubicle. They've never been particularly great at fighting. She lets things simmer and coil. She hasn't mentioned that Stephen is gone, though literally, he left eight days ago. She figures it's self-explanatory.

"I'm an asshole," he asserts, stealing the edge of her desk, knees pointing toward the filing cabinets.

She resists the urge to shove him to the floor and continues the dinner reservation she was making for him and nameless woman #758,202. "Doesn't make it any better, Harvey."

"He didn't de-"

"You know nothing. Stop talking," Donna says quietly. Whether or not Stephen deserved her, whether or not she deserved him, the whole charade is fucking over. "Your next appointment is waiting," she finishes, without emotion.

Ok, perhaps she's a little mad at him too. Unfortunately, that just seems to amplify her urge to step between his legs, and-

"Being right isn't always enjoyable," Harvey tells her, standing, stuffing his hands in his pockets and wandering back into the glass enclosure she'd like to lock him in until she's over this.

There are lilies on her desk when she returns from lunch and they smell so putrid she almost tosses them into the trash. Instead, she shoves them to the corner, not bothering with the card that undoubtedly has someone else's handwriting scrawled across it.

* * *

He's taken to boxing her in.

Kitchen. Filing rooms. The bathroom. Again.

It's not that she hasn't forgiven him. She's just trying to avoid him. Because he smiles and it makes her stomach do a little pirouette and a smirk can make her heart flip and being in his vicinity is bad for her stability.

Because people stopped talking about poor Donna when Stephen came into the picture, and the fragmented whispers and half-truths turned into distant memories, warm and bruising. Her cuticles look like shit, she's been ripping them and peeling them while she's on the phone with people who aren't stupid and in love with the people they work for. Her hair has split ends, and they're not all on the ends. Her nails are devoid of color. And she's starting to fear that she may need glasses.

Things are not going well.

To top it off, Fish has been floating in his bowl for three days, because she just can't deal with that right now.

She's edgy, almost vibrating from the shaking that's under her itchy skin when he finds her in the partner's kitchen. Coffee spills over the lip of her cup onto the counter because that's just how her month is progressing and she can see him trying not to laugh.

"What's going on with you?"

"Nothing, what's going on with you?" Donna retorts, cleaning her mess, careful not to touch the cup again for fear that it may lash out and stain her silk blouse.

Harvey squints and makes that face he gets when he's trying to piece things together. She's always been faster.

"My fish died," she shrugs half-heartedly. It's not a lie.

And instead of giving her crap for having a fish or tormenting her fragile mental state he simply brushes a stray piece of hair off her face, running a few fingers down her neck, and breathes an apology so quick you'd blink and miss it.

He's gone even faster.

Her breathing is labored, her skin is burning, and she's certain he's catching on.

* * *

Rachel tells her that they can hold a memorial by getting wasted in their favorite bar in the east village. Donna feels tricked when they arrive and see that Mike and Harvey are already waiting for the table. She'd like to wrap her nimble fingers carefully around Rachel's neck, but both she and Harvey share a look that instantly tells her that he didn't know what the hell was going on either.

The place is dim, intimate, and it sets off alarm bells. This is not where they are supposed to be, what they are supposed to be doing, or who they are supposed to be with. But, she's good at rolling with the punches, she works for Harvey after all.

"So...a fish," Harvey interrogates, as Rachel and Mike get lost in each other, lost at the bar.

"Don't," Donna says, shaking her head, hair pins pulling tightly. She has far too few expensive cocktails in her system at the moment. She can actually remember the last time she and Harvey dared to enter a bar together and it's been damn near a decade at this point.

They were fun then, careless, uninhibited.

The jokes have disappeared over the last few weeks, the barbs, quips, and retorts are all stuffed back in her desk drawer. Misery is cloaking her, keeping her company.

"You know," he continues, undaunted as ever, "I find it hard to believe that you even owned a fish, let alone are this upset that it met its inevitable demise."

"He was real," she admonishes. She inhales, exhales, searching for an excuse. Jesus, she used to be so much better at this. It affected nothing, it went nowhere, mostly.

"Mike says-"

"You're listening to Mike these days?" she interrupts, checking the time on her phone. It feels like it's been twice as long as it has really been.

"You still talk to him," Harvey swallows, looking at his own phone, willing email to appear.

Donna frowns. It's that obvious. "He'll be getting talked to about this, I assure you."

"You're keeping things from me," he accuses, mouth set in a thin line.

She sighs into her empty glass. This argument is quite pointless. They keep little things from each other all the time, stashed away, the ugly secrets that aren't worth telling, that eat away at her while she should be sleeping. She doesn't know who they are kidding anymore, why they thought those tiny little cracks wouldn't damage the structural foundation of their relationship.

"I thought that was our thing now," she teases, and he looks sad. He's stupid enough to think it can all just go back to how it was, she just wishes she had that blind hope. "Besides, it isn't important to you."

"It must be to you," he challenges.

"I'm going to go freshen up, if I don't come back, don't send the cavalry."

* * *

She hails a cab instead of powdering her nose. Houdini, she is not but Rachel won't notice until it's too late. She somehow reaches her apartment after him and she curses Ray for knowing the city better than her lame excuse for a cabbie while simultaneously throwing money in his general direction.

He follows her to her apartment, waiting for her keys to jingle in the locks.

The silence eats at her as he walks in like he owns the place and tosses his jacket on her couch, toeing out of his shoes. He plucks a coffee cup out of her cupboard and guesses right the first time though she's rearranged countless times since he'd been here last.

He scoops the bloated and decrepit fish from the bowl on her counter and she hears the toilet flush a minute later. He opens the window on the far end of her apartment and tosses the cup out into the dumpster and she feels a rush of hot summer air hit her skin.

She's grateful.

The AC kicks on as he paces back to her and removes the bowl and tosses that out the window too. It misses the dumpster, hits the edge, splintering, she can hear the glass littering the dark pavement below.

At least she won't have to deal with that tomorrow.

When he returns he looks around distastefully. The place has kind of fell into a state of decay in her failure and fatigue. Her shoes are everywhere, and when one of the shelves from the bookcase decided to collapse under the weight of her favorite readings she simply propped it up against the side and stacked the books in the corner. Everything could use a good dusting and the flowers on the end table, the regrettable lilies, wilted long ago.

"I wasn't expecting...anyone," Donna explains, kicking out of another pair of heels and heading to the kitchen to find a drink. She's too sober to have him in her apartment.

"I'd hope not," Harvey agrees, finding the remote buried under a playbill only to discover the batteries are dead. It's just as well,_SportsCenter_ isn't really conducive to anything.

They are at standstill, facing off through he first two glasses of whiskey. Someone is going to have to blink first and Donna merely hangs her head. God, she's tired.

"What is it Donna, just tell me," he urges, ignoring yet another probably text from Mike about where they are.

She feels it bubble in her throat and for a split second she thinks she may actually vomit. She's not said it aloud. Ever. Not when threatened, coerced, or blackmailed. Never. She glances over at him and sighs. He looks out of place in her small apartment. He looks like the cleanest thing in her pig pen. She wonders, briefly, dumbly, if she looks as absurd in his condo.

"It's nothing, I told you already," she says, voice distinctly unrecognizable.

"Unless you've had a lobotomy it wasn't about that vile creature I just tossed."

"Why are you here?" Donna challenges, slipping onto the couch beside him, feet curling up, aching.

"I feel..." he pauses, waiting for her to stop him but she doesn't have the energy for the requisite banter. "like I'm losing...you."

She laughs, in the back of her throat, unfeigned, unabashed. "I'm not going anywhere Harvey."

She never does.

"You know what I mean," he pursues, reaching for the bottle she set next to the dead flowers he hadn't noticed until now, they look familiar.

"Do I?"

"Donna."

"What?" her head lolls against the back of the couch, eyes closing. She wishes he would just turn on the damn television and stop talking. It's not getting them anywhere, though Rachel would still somehow be both proud and defeated.

"I can't lose you," he responds, softly, in that tone that makes her swoon and also hate herself. And she is spending a lot of time hating herself lately.

"I know that Harvey. I'm handling it. It's under control," she assures him. She's balancing twenty scalding plates and none of them are going to drop on her watch.

"What are you handling?"

"I...I think I'm..." she gives up and motions between the two of them resigned, praying he can catch on.

He's got the smuggest look on she's seen to date, and she throws her head back, hands covering her face as it deepens its shade of red. The worst part is proving his lifelong assumptions correct, not everyone else's.

If her mother could see her now. Or Louis. Or god forbid every single tramp who has dared to step into her business. They're all laughing now.

His lips are hot and alarmingly soft against hers. She forgets to breathe and her eyes fly open to find his arms on either side of her, imprisoning. She's not responding, and he doesn't seem to mind, nips at her bottom lip with his teeth, tries to find her tongue.

After an internal meltdown equivalent to a fireworks finale, her first reaction is flight. She's shoving against his chest, forcing him back to side of his couch and she springs up, pacing the full length of the apartment. He doesn't dare speak first, lets her get a good ten laps in.

"What the hell Harvey! I said I was handling it-"

"I was helping-"

"That doesn't help!"

"I want to do it again-" he realizes offhandedly.

"Jesus Christ! You need to leave. Now." Rage begins to boil. She won't sleep for days. She may spend her weekend puking her nerves away and shopping for a new pet.

He looks scared, eyes scanning right and left, trying to make contact with her fury. "I need you," he reminds her and she considers throwing something at his head.

"Take your pity and get the hell out of my apartment."

* * *

She calls in sick on Monday.

And Tuesday.

There's really no system for this, and on stuffy September Wednesday she shuffles down to her cubicle at five in the morning ready to tackle everything that has been piling up. Because she's a professional. And because this is it.

There's nothing else anymore.

But at 7:54 she still wants to grab her purse and bolt. Maybe she could just work overnights.

"I see your highness has decided to grace us with her presence today. Work week starts on Monday Paulsen," Harvey greets her and she stares back helplessly. Is this really their best course of action, a 180?

"Well my boss is a prick who likes to ignore my vacation requests so I thought I would take some time off," she replies, standing to greet him, handing off messages, taking the spare coffee in his hand, and taking a moment to appreciate the offer of caffeine.

He's a foot into his office when he spins back around and she freezes, hands hovering shakily above the space bar.

"It wasn't pity."

* * *

She thanks Rachel for the horrendous fake food poisoning she received courtesy of her friend's bar choice, and explains she spent the weekend and part of the week on the floor of her bathroom (not completely without truth). Mike's suspicious though, probably caught Harvey casually leaving directly after her, but he doesn't bring it up and she's thankful that he can keep his curiosity at bay for once. And Harvey is spending a good deal of time outside his office, which Donna doesn't particularly mind because her eyes still bleed with the image of him over her, the sensation of his teeth sinking into the lip she usually reserves for deep thinking.

_It wasn't pity._

It's on replay. And she can't make much sense of it. She showed up, didn't abandon him, as she promised she wouldn't. There was no real need to soothe her ruffled feathers.

_Time_, she tells herself, again and again and again.

It just takes time.

* * *

Thursday he cages her between the records and the wall, pressing firmly against her palms and her common sense. She tells herself not to be impressed with the heat coming off his suit, the way he takes his time with her lips, and how he's afraid to touch any part of her other than her mouth.

The following Tuesday it is the sanctity of the fax machine being violated before the riffraff can stumble in for the day. He dares to kiss her neck, but stops, bids her a good morning and disappears to go yell at Mike, who will arrive two hours late without fail.

Wednesday it's the elevator. And it's infuriating to all of the hidden fantasies she's had about late hours. Eventually, she realizes she's actually kissing him back. And likely encouraging whatever damn game he is playing.

On Friday she's so disgusted with herself, her lack of willpower, she sneaks out early and ducks his texts.

* * *

She should have considered that he would feel entitled to just walking into her apartment while she was trying to ignore him, to sort out her feelings from everything else.

"I need to move," she groans as he traipses by her, loosening his tie, and sinking into her couch. He looks like he needs something, like he may be staying for awhile. "Was there something that I could help you with, Harvey? Tea? Water?"

"Beer, if you've got any," he replies without skipping a beat.

And she has beer.

He's picking at the label, sodden, and faded.

"What'd the beginning look like?" He asks, careful not to make eye contact.

"That was a long time ago," Donna tells him quickly, taking another gulp, looking for a way to get further away from him.

"Yeah," he concedes, takes to the silence again, before, "what about now?"

"We can't just date, Harvey, that'd be idiotic."

"Wanna get married then?" he teases and she's glaring.

"I'm serious," Donna says. "It wouldn't work. We can't be around each other 24 hours a day."

"Speak for yourself-"

"I...would kill you...daydream ways to murder you in your sleep while updating your calendar."

"You're always so charming, no wonder men throw themselves at you to be eaten alive." He takes to the label again, meticulously. Probably too soon to be joking about other men. "How?" he shrugs, clueless.

"There isn't a way-"

"But you said-"

"It doesn't matter what I said," Donna says, rapidly growing agitated while trying to make her point.

"You could transfer to Jessica," Harvey tells her. He's been thinking. Scheming.

"And then what? Come home with you every night?" He looks guilty. "No."

"We could come here too," he offers.

"Can you just leave now?" She's almost begging, not a great look. "I'll see you bright and early on Monday, without the...kissing."

"You like the kissing. I like the kissing. More, I say. Certainly not less." There's not a lot of arguing to be done there, she understands.

"We could quit," he suggests pathetically.

"You're in the middle of a hostile takeover and you just wanna call it quits?" He'd regret that forever, she'd get caught in the fire. "No."

"Come clean, tell Jessica, tell them all. Screw 'em."

"Not an option."

"Help me figure this out," he demands, reaching for her hand. She pulls it further away, takes to standing behind the chair, putting a physical barrier between them. "I want this," he gestures to her, eerily similar to her breakdown in the same place.

"You don't want this, you just want something, anything right now because it's all crumbling."

"I want you," he refutes, standing too, and there's a large part of her that wants this to end against a wall, or the dining table, or the kitchen counter, or Jesus, the bed if they could make it the twenty feet.

"You're a mess," she retaliates. "And I am not your savior."

"I'm not asking you to-"

"You are. You're asking for the impossible."

"Fine," he mumbles, setting the bottle down. "This isn't over," he warns.

"It is, Harvey, it's all over."

He doesn't slam the door when he leaves. There's no rain streaking the windows, no thunder clasping its hands in the distance. There's nothing but the wretched hollowness of her apartment and a bitter victory.

* * *

It's almost business as usual the following week. Contracts close, retainers are set up, the schedule gets hectic. He's professional, distant. She's content to stay in her cubicle until it all blows over.

He's choosing her.

So is she.

* * *

_"Don't you love him?"_

Rachel is tired because Mike is tired because Harvey is working through it, literally.

"It doesn't matter," Donna sighs into her phone, falling back into bed.

_"He said he wanted a relationship. With you."_

"Doesn't matter," Donna mumbles again, attempting to climb under her comforter with only one hand. It's 8:02pm.

_"How!"_

"We'd only end one way." Her eyes are slipping closed, a state of blissful sleepiness sweeping over her.

_"You don't know that."_

"I know everything."

The dial tone is not an unwelcome surprise.


End file.
